MUZAFFARABAD/ SRINAGAR: As India-held Kashmir braced for stepped-up policing Saturday on the occasion of the first death anniversary of famed Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, Indian troops resorted to heavy shelling in different areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir from across the Line of Control (LoC), officials said.
At least five civilians, four of them women, were reported killed and 10 others injured in the shelling incidents, the highest death toll in a single day in many months of cross-border violence. “There has been heavy firing and shelling by Indian troops in different parts of Abbaspur and Hajira sectors since 5:30am in the morning,” said Raja Tahir Mumtaz, the deputy commissioner of district Poonch, where these two sectors fall in. He said Mohammad Sharif, a 75-year-old resident of Bhaira village near the Tetrinote crossing point in Hajira sector, lost his life after a mortar shell landed on his mud-house, destroying it completely. Apart from him, 70-year-old woman Sassi Begum was also killed in Tetrinote. Riyasat, 35, and Aqsa Iftikhar, 18, were also injured in Tetrinote.
Meanwhile, a 26-year-old woman, Faiza Saleem, was killed and two young girls – Adiba, 22, and Mahnoor, 17 – injured in Satwal village of Abbaspur sector. Another woman, Kulsoom, 35, was killed and her 14-year-old son Zahid injured in the Dhakki Chafar village of Abbaspur sector. Abida Parveen, 22, was injured in Chafar and two teenaged boys, Rizwan Hanif, 16, and Faizan Ali, 14, were injured in Batol and Chaatra villages of the same sector.
In Kotli district, a 22-year-old girl, Aniba Jamshed, was critically injured in Indian firing in the Lanjot village of Nakyal sector at about 6:30am. She later succumbed to her injuries in the afternoon. Elsewhere in the same sector, two men – Mohammad Ilyas and Jahangir – were injured in the Oli Panjni village. Over in IHK, government forces threw tear gas and clashed with stone-throwing protesters, as the volatile Himalayan region marked the anniversary of Burhan Wani.
Thousands of troops have fanned out across IHK. Witnesses and police said clashes broke out when protesters tried to reach the family home on Saturday morning and were blocked by government forces. Around a dozen protesters were injured, one of them critically, when government forces fired pellet guns into a crowd of protesters in the town of Shopian in south Kashmir.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office (FO) summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh to lodge a protest against the “unprovoked” ceasefire violation. The FO’s Director General (South Asia and Saarc), Dr Muhammad Faisal, lodged the protest. “The deliberate targeting of civilians is deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws,” Faisal said.
Published in Daily Times, July 9th , 2017
